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As I Lay Dying Literary Analysis Essay

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As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner In the excerpt from William Faulkner’s Southern novel, As I Lay Dying the author structures his novel through the use of literary features such as allusion, similes a belittling yet humorous tone, concrete imagery and a stream of consciousness style in the passage. Faulkner throughout the passage not only describes Cash’s reserved character and Darls perspective imagination but he also foreshadows the struggle the Bundren’s will go through as they prepare to go on the journey of burying Addie. First, Faulkner has the speaker Darl create a gloomy mood by using similes to display the ambiance in the room. Then Faulkner alludes to the bible and uses concrete imagery to illustrate both the surroundings and Cash’s concentration and determination as he makes his mother’s coffin. Next, using a stream of consciousness narration, Faulkner has Darl narrate the preparation room of Addie’s’ coffin with specific details about his surroundings almost as if he was actually there when he says …show more content…

“No; the other one. He puts the saw down and comes and picks up the plank he wants, sweeping pa away” Darl treats his father with disrespect which foreshadows Addi’s revenge on Anse. By reading the beginning chapters we see how Faulkner shows Anse as uncaring and selfish. One of the reasons why Cash shows resentment to his father is because Anse stands idly by and pretends to be working while all he is doing is getting in his way like when he recounts that him and Vernon were looking for the saw and he whole time Anse had it. This leads to Cash asking his father to go inside and Anse describes Cash’s face as though it had been “carved by a savage caricaturist” instead of using words such as frightening and angry he uses this diction to show the intensity of Cash’s

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With the greatest number of monologues, Darl acts as a surrogate for Faulkner. His intuitive ability to penetrate the minds of others and see through their facades enables him to provide the most objective, however blunt, commentary. His sanity becomes questioned more as the novel progresses, but he still labors as a reliable narrator in how he forces his family members to see real situations. Darl’s

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The narrative, As I Lay Dying, develops a reading of the Bundren family. Each of the family members including the mother that is dead, narrate about themselves in relevance to the entire family. By writing about relatable problems for the audience to relate to, Faulkner discusses the loss of the mother, Addie. Dealing with a significant family loss, Anse, already justifies that Faulkner is fulfilling his own vision of the writer’s duty. The author reflects on Addie, who is the mother in the entire story and

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In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, nature acts as brutal yet guiding force, showing the characters what is the most reasonable path for the dead through hints and roadblocks. Nature first provides strong hints about the urgency accompanied with death. Before the Bundrens begin their journey, buzzards are already present, seeking the deceased to scavenge.

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The family's treacherous journey to Jefferson is filled with danger and excitement, yet Faulkner gives many doses of humor throughout the novel. The characters employ themselves in outrageous acts of irony, from Addie's rejection of her most devoted son, to Anse's concern with his false teeth instead of Addie's death, to Vardaman's calling his mother a fish. This irony would not have been evident if it were not for Faulkner's use of multiple narrators. Faulkner was enchanted by Freudian theories of psychology when he wrote this novel, and recounting the story through various perspectives allows the reader to understand each character's reaction. This enhanced the dark humor throughout the novel because the reader can see into each family member's thoughts on her death.

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In the novel, As I lay dying by William Faulkner, the Bundren family go through a mental journey of loss and death of their mother later to go on a physical journey to bury their mother. To the conclusion of any novel, many have an opinion on what is much happy or not a happy ending. In the case of the ending to As I lay dying, include no real burial of how the mother wanted, which was the point of the physical journey in the first place, secrets comes out, one of the five the siblings gets taken away, and many are left with unfinished business, was not a happy at all for most of the characters. The novel is narrated by 15 characters that are not all part of the Bundren family but in some way connected.

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In the novel, As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner shapes the plot based on the looming presence of the absentee protagonist, Addie Bundren. The reader’s knowledge of Addie accumulates through the monologues of other characters, so the reader gains only bits and pieces of Addie’s character. However, after her death, the reader obtains a better understanding of Addie’s voice through her own monologue and as a result, is characterized as cold and selfish. Through the use of similes and interior monologue, Faulkner shows Addie’s tendency to detach herself from the people in her life, which relates to the novel’s overall theme of solitude as Addie adheres to her father’s philosophy that the reason for living is no more than “to get ready to stay dead a long time” (169).

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